Largebarge

I live in the population center of this fine state. Meaning that traffic sucks, though it’s probably the endless construction causing that. The first stage of my commute has been taking a silly amount of time the last couple of mornings (passing between three major highways and, of course, a construction zone). Half of me is pissed off at everybody on the road and the other half is asleep so I didn’t notice the massive police presence the first morning. Their lights were a bit more distracting the next morning judging by the other motorists gawking and swerving into my lane and/or slamming on brakes.

I think it was that day I heard about the kid they were trying to find in the lake a little ways off my road. He was reported missing and cops found his car near the water. Bloodhounds followed his trail up to the water. Divers spent three days looking for him. And now he’s been found. Alive. Somewhere else. Dude, this better be a great story. There had better be LSD and a moonlight baptism and a nude trek through the wilderness involved.

Speaking of LSD, there was a girl busted a few weeks ago for dealing the tottery blotter. She was a student at the university. A philosophy major. Dealing ‘cid at her job as a stripper a couple of towns over. She was also quoted in the New York Times a whiles back in a write-up on the school’s philosophy program. Her quote concerning the perks of studying philosophy which closed the story was about male philosophy students:

“That whole deep existential torment,” she said. “It’s good for getting girlfriends.”

Wow. I spent a short time as a philosophy major at the same school and switched majors after attending a couple of department meetings. Everybody was wearing black turtlenecks. That’s not my style. If there had been philosophadelic go-go dancer co-eds with a thing for existential torment I would’ve stuck around.

It’s an emergency. Clearly, as the cop car I saw down a cul-de-sac (French for “perigee-of-the-sac”) when I pulled into my supermax condo parking lot was soon joined by a fire truck and a third emergency response vehicle of unknown purpose.
(Continued)

Many bulls from Salamanca, if fought at four and one-half to five years, hence having their natural size and not needing to be fed up on grain to reach the government-required poundage, with a year more on the range and the consequent added maturity, would be the ideal fighting bulls except for a tendency that they have to lose frankness and bravery when they have passed their fourth year. (Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon, 126)

I don’t remember my first alarm clock. There is a memory of Snoopy perched atop, but memory confuses my first alarm clock for a Snoopy Sno-Cone Machine. There have been many others; I am brutal to my alarm clocks to a point exceeding abusiveness. I have woken with scraped knuckles.

My current alarm clock is nearing submission. We battle every morning still, and the alarm clock has the moves - a quick alarm 1, countering my jab at snooze with an alarm 2 set to trigger 3 minutes after alarm 1. After a few rounds the classic rock is too much and I throw myself with gusto into the morning like a sack of potatoes into a Monsanto processing plant. But these days the volume only operates at way-too-low and way-too-high loudness. I opt for way-too-low because I have neighbors and a consideration problem I’ve been working on fixing.

Knowing it was certain my alarm clock would soon tap out of the fight, I have been shopping for a new alarm clock. This shopping process has

I think my cat just puked.

Oh, cool, just a hairball.

This shopping process has rules. My goal is to obtain an object which I will see almost every morning, which I will berate physically and verbally, which I will hate with every part of me at least capable of faking hate. I must ensure I get one I like. I had this one alarm clock which was a bigot - never again. It projected the time onto the ceiling, that cruel bastard, knowing I couldn’t make out the numbers without my glasses. Unless I am wearing my dream glasses. My list of requirements, disregarding for now proximity of timepiece to face, is short. AM/FM radio, though I’d settle for just FM; adjustable snooze time as the nine minute standard is unnatural; and the balls to put up a good fight every morning for the next few years.

Will it have those balls? We shall see in the morning. It is just like the old one except sleeker and silverier. I think they come from the same line, so I am confident in its abilities. I hate this thing already.

The man who went out with the cape in both hands after the bull has been run, and cited him from in front, standing still as the bull charged, and with his arms moving the cape slowly just ahead of the bull’s horns, passing the bull’s horns close by his body with a slow movement of the cape, seeming to keep him controlled, in the folds of the cape, bringing him past his body each time as he turned and recharged; doing this five times and then finishing off with a swirl of the cape that turned the man’s back on the bull and, by cutting the bull’s charge brusquely, fixed him to the spot; that man was the matador and the slow passes he made were called veronicas and the half pass at the end a media-veronica. (Death in the Afternoon, 65)

Next time on Largebarge Post: Can an iPod Shuffle survive a spin in the washer followed by long enough in the dryer for me to actually get up and see what was making the awful clank, which was plenty long enough for the dryer to get all hot and moist? Also, what qualities do you look for in an alarm clock?